Method and apparatus for cooling an electronic device

Abstract

A heat dissipation apparatus for cooling one or more electronic devices. The apparatus utilizes a moving heat sink a portion of which is in contact with the device to be cooled. The moving heat sink may be in the form of a rotating disk, moving belt or strip. The heat sink may be made from various materials such as metals or plastics.

Description

FIELD OF THE INVENTIONThe present invention relates to the field of cooling of electronic components; more specifically, it relates to an apparatus and a method for enhancing the removal rate of heat generated by electronic components.BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTIONHigh performance microprocessor devices and the like concentrate heat in a very small space which require improved thermal cooling to maintain acceptable operating conditions. There are numerous different solutions to overcome this problem which are used in different applications such as thermally conductive pistons, micro bellows, water cooled cold plates, heat sinks, heat pipes and fans. A conventional technique used to improve thermal performance is to add finned heat sinks to increase the available surface area. Making the fins longer provides increasing thermal performance up to a point. If the fins get too long, the tips of the fins approach ambient temperature and an increase in fin length no longer improves the therma...

AI Technical Summary

Benefits of technology

It is a still further object of the present invention that the heat transfer efficiency be nearly independent of fin thickness and thermal conductivity as long as sufficient fin velocity relative to the electronic component is maintained. The fin can therefore be made of lightweight plastic materials.

Problems solved by technology

If the fins get too long, the tips of the fins approach ambient temperature and an increase in fin length no longer improves the thermal performance.

The ultimate performance of an air cooled heat sink will be limited by available space, air flow and weight.

Extremely good thermal performance is obtained but the system is massive and not applicable to standard semiconductor packaging techniques.

This device is large and the fan tends to generate loud audible noise.

U.S. Pat. No. 5,504,924 to Ohashi et. al. utilizes a heat pipe as one of its components, but to make the heat pipe effective one end is attached to a large cooling unit which is quite cumbersome.

Relatively high speeds are required and the unit is far too large for dense, lightweight, low power applications needed for semiconductor chips.

Thus high performance cooling methods can be quite large, heavy, or consume large amounts of power or generate audible noise which are undesirable in small equipment or portable computers.

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